Post by Rachelle Pedersen and Natasha Wilkerson

Posted: October 5, 2024

The world’s greatest superhero needs your help! Your mission is to create an exact replica of their top-secret headquarters. But there’s a catch: the villain has stolen all the blueprints! It’s time to put on your engineering hats, strategize with your team, and rebuild the superhero’s headquarters brick by brick. The fate of this mission depends on you—let’s get started!

The Brick by Brick: Intro to Criteria & Constraints lesson builds communication skills, increases understanding of the engineering design process, and is a great way to connect to authentic engineering work. Learn more below and find this lesson for FREE in our STEM resource library.

Brick by Brick: Lesson Overview

While engineering design challenges are popular across K-12 classrooms, students often have misconceptions about the work of real-world engineers. The purpose of this lesson is to introduce Nature of Engineering (NOE) concepts, including problem framing, criteria and constraints, and modeling, and how these relate to professional engineering. Students will investigate the question: “How might our plans, designs, and processes change over the course of a project and what impacts these changes?”

Prior to the lesson, the instructor will build a simple model using building bricks such as Lego© building bricks. This can represent a food truck, store, school, spaceship, or any structure. Students are then tasked to create an exact replica of this model, but the model will be hidden from view initially! As a team, students will work together to ask questions about this task and plan a strategy for reconstructing this design. Teams will then be allowed to send one member at a time to view the model. The activity will end with teams being timed while building the replica.

Materials Needed

Toy Building Bricks (such as these on Amazon or these)- Each team should have their own bag that has the same pieces as the building they are replicating and more.
Whiteboard and whiteboard markers or large sticky note pads
Scratch paper or Engineering Notebooks
Markers/crayons/colored pencils
Timer

Lesson Goals

In this engineering lesson, students engage in a structured activity designed to enhance their understanding of fundamental engineering principles. The exercise emphasizes teamwork while introducing critical concepts such as criteria and constraints, essential drawing practices, and the role of creativity in engineering design. Reflective questioning serves as a pivotal tool, guiding students to connect their hands-on experience with broader Nature of Engineering (NOE) concepts. By bridging class activities to real-world engineering applications, students gain insights into how theoretical knowledge translates into practical scenarios, thereby reinforcing the relevance of their learning to actual engineering challenges. Learning goals include:

Working within Criteria and Constraints: Learning how to navigate limitations and requirements.
Variations in Engineering Processes: Exploring the diverse methods and approaches in engineering.
The Iterative Nature of Engineering: Understanding the importance of continuous improvement and refinement.

Standards: This project aligns with several Elementary, Middle School, and High School NGSS and ITEEA standards, such as:

3-5-ETS1-1. Define a simple design problem reflecting a need or a want that includes specified criteria for success and constraints on materials, time, or cost.
MS-ETS1-2. Evaluate competing design solutions using a systematic process to determine how well they meet the criteria and constraints of the problem.
STEL-2W. Select resources that involve tradeoffs between competing values, such as availability, cost, desirability, and waste, while solving problems. (Grades 9-12).

Lesson Overview

This adaptable STEM lesson follows the 5E Model and can be customized in terms of length and concepts based on your students' needs.

Part 1 - Engage: What information do we need? (20 minutes)

Introduce the problem: The world’s greatest superhero needs your help! Your mission is to create an exact replica of their top-secret headquarters. But there’s a catch: the villain has stolen all the blueprints! It’s time to put on your engineering hats, strategize with your team, and rebuild the superhero’s headquarters brick by brick. The fate of this mission depends on you—let’s get started! (You can change this to another structure like a spaceship or store).

Define the problem: Students will be tasked with asking questions in order to define the constraints of this scenario. They will need to consider what information is critical for success.

Part 2 - Explore: Prepare, Plan & Build (30 minutes)

Ahead of time, set up a model using building bricks or other available materials. Keep the model hidden behind a trifold board. The goal is for students to recreate this model. Here are the rules and phases of this activity:

Preparation (3 minutes): Provide each team with a bag of building materials, paper, and pencil. Before getting access to the model, teams will make a plan on how they will work together to collect information in the planning phase. No viewing the model yet.
Planning (15 minutes): Each team can send one person at a time to visit the hidden model. The viewer can not touch the building, take pictures or make any notes. That person will report back to their team, who can then send up another person for viewing. The goal here is to collect data to build an accurate model in the next phase. Each team must estimate how long it will take to build the model.
Construction (time varies): Time to build! As a class, decide on how to time each build. Then allow each team to build based on their plan. No viewing of the model is allowed.

Part 3 - Explain: Connect to the Nature of Engineering (20 minutes)

Review the results of the construction phase. Facilitate a class discussion to address what factors define the “best” design, such as accuracy and time. Connect this activity to the engineering “bidding process.” Ask students to reflect on the steps they took to build the model and how these compare to other teams. Introduce the idea that while the class followed the same phases, each team used different strategies and steps to build the model.

Part 4 - Elaborate: Optimize the Process (20 min)

Reflect on how the data the students collected can be used to optimize a future activity. Connect the activity to a real-world engineering example that illustrates the nature of engineering concepts.

Optional Extension (+30 min): Have students "go back" and modify the challenge so that the criteria are different (and based on original questions students developed during the brainstorming of questions). Challenge students to refine and modify their processes for optimal efficiency or optimal teamwork/creativity.

Part 5 - Evaluate: Apply to Real World Case Studies (5 min)

While evaluation of students' conceptual understanding is ongoing throughout the lesson, we can evaluate student understanding further by having them connect ideas back to the real-world. Ask students to identify one "engineered solution," such as a chair, a park, or an accessible ramp for a building. Ask students to demonstrate their understanding of what the potential criteria and constraints were for designing that solution.

Find the free in lesson in our resource library!

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Why Criteria and Constraints Matter

In the initial phase of this lesson, students face the challenge of replicating a toy block building precisely, using the same colors, sizes, and order of bricks, all while working with limited access to the model and restricted materials. This task emphasizes the importance of working within criteria and constraints, requiring students to collaborate efficiently, communicate efficiently, and address any challenges that may come their way as a team.

Unlike typical building challenges where speed might be the focus, this project shifts the emphasis to achieving the “best” outcome. Success is measured by process efficiency, the quality of their documentation, and whether or not teams can accurately assess the time required to build. This lesson mirrors real-world engineering scenarios, offering students a hands-on, engaging introduction to foundational engineering concepts. It sets the stage for more advanced lessons by demonstrating how engineers tackle projects with clear criteria and constraints.

Connecting to the work of engineers:

Ask Questions to Define Project Criteria and Limitations: Engineers often need to clarify project requirements and constraints through effective questioning, honing their communication and critical thinking skills.

Evaluate Competing Solutions: There is rarely a single “best” solution in engineering. Students will learn to assess various approaches and determine the most effective solution based on the project’s criteria.
Use Models to Communicate and Compare Ideas: Engineers rely on models and drawings to share concepts and designs. This practice is crucial for effective collaboration, especially when working with diverse teams across different specialties.

By engaging in this lesson, students gain practical experience in essential engineering principles, preparing them for future challenges and projects.

Tips and Tricks for Implementation

Don’t automatically give students colored pencils/markers during Planning, but have them available if teams ask for them. This can be an interesting discussion point about tools for communication during concept development!
Have the model set away from team tables and switch locations halfway through Planning so that teams have equal access to the location of the model.
Be sure to discuss potential safety concerns before starting! Students get excited, so how can we make sure folks are safe while having fun?
For colorblind students, try to use basic colors that aren’t too similar, for example, red, yellow, blue, white, black, green, but not light blue and blue. Don’t place similar shades of colors next to one another.
Adjust the level of difficulty for your students by making the model more complex (more floors, different types of pieces, etc).

Dive deeper into engineering with the Brick by Brick challenge. As students refine their processes or rethink the challenge, they'll build essential skills that will serve them in future projects.

Acknowledgments

This lesson was developed in partnership with Dr. Michael de Miranda, the Reta Haynes Endowed Chair, Professor, and Dean of the College of Education and Human Development at Texas A&M University.

This blog post contains affiliate links. Vivify STEM, LLC. participates in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

Brick by Brick: Intro to Criteria and Constraints